Big Tits Zombie

Big Tits Zombie
Cover to the Japanese DVD release of Big Tits Zombie (2010)
Directed by	Takao Nakano
Produced by	Seiji Minami Hideaki Nishiyama
Written by	Takao Nakano
Starring	Sola Aoi Risa Kasumi Mari Sakurai
Cinematography	Kazuaki Yoshizawa
Production company	TMC (Total Media Corporation)
Distributed by	TMC (Total Media Corporation)
Release dates	May 15, 2010 (2010-05-15)
Running time	73 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Big Tits Zombie (巨乳ドラゴン 温泉ゾンビVSストリッパー5, Kyonyū doragon: Onsen zonbi vs sutorippaa 5, lit. "Big Tits Dragon: Hot Spring Zombie Vs. Stripper 5") is a 2010 Japanese fantasy-horror film. It was adapted from the manga Kyonyū Dragon by Rei Mikamoto, and stars several known faces from Japan's adult movie industry, most notably Sola Aoi. It is directed by Japanese satirist Takao Nakano and much of the action is shot in 3D. The film is said to be an ironic take on Japanese pop culture.

Plot summary

The film opens up with Lena Jodo (played by Sola Aoi ), a stripper, wielding a chainsaw and trying to escape a horde of zombies inside an abandoned spa resort. During the attack, the chainsaw stops working and Lena is about to be killed by the zombies, only to be saved after fellow stripper Ginko arrives and fends them off with a katana. Lena is eventually successful at getting the chainsaw to work and begins to fend off the remaining zombies.

The film cuts to several days earlier where Ginko and Lena are working in an unsuccessful strip club called Paradise Ikagawa Theatre with several other strippers. The most notable being Maria, an intelligent, red-headed gothic bookworm with a penchant for self mutilation (along with a habit of quoting literary figures such as William Shakespeare), Lena, a fortune-telling stripper, and Darna, a stripper trying to raise enough money to see her siblings. Lena recounts what led her to the club. Several days ago, Lena returned from Mexico in desperate need of cash and goes to find work. However, she ends up getting drunk and breaking into a homeless man's cardboard box and sleeping with him. Hungover and disgusted by the discovery, Lena ditches him, steals his umbrella, and leaves while being yelled at by the homeless man over the stolen umbrella.

Lena later receives a phone call from Manjiro, a deadbeat Ikagawa Promotions manager who owes the strippers a huge amount of money. Manjiro informs Lena that Ginko got arrested recently and that he will need a dancer to perform for ten days. Lena reluctantly accepts the offer due to her requiring shelter. Lena later meets up with Yudai, an employee of the strip club. Once they arrive, Yudai tells Lena about a man who attempted to build a spa resort, but was unsuccessful and led to his own family committing suicide with the spa resort being next to the strip club.

Later, Yudai informs them that the theatre will be closed tomorrow. Nene interrogates Yudai about the payment and the strippers go to Manjiro after Yudai had no knowledge regarding the payment. Manjiro tries to lie his way out of the payment, but is unsuccessful. Agreeing to pay for the gig, Manjiro offers them a strip show gig at a spa resort.

At the spa resort, Nene tells one of the spa workers they are with Ikagawa productions. However, the spa worker tells them that sex trade workers must come through the back door. In response Ginko informs them that they are dancers, not strippers or prostitutes. Later, the group performs a show for one of the spa attendees. Instead, the lead attendee insists on a sumo wrestling match between Lena and Ginko where the winner receives cash and the loser will be forced to be used as a human sushi bar. Lena wins the match while Ginko is reluctantly forced to become the human sushi bar. Lena ends up unintentionally sleeping with the lead spa attendee after getting drunk off red sake.

Later, Ginko becomes angry with Lena's habit of sleeping with men when she gets drunk and the two of them start to fight, leading to both girls inadvertently ripping each other's shirts off and knocking down a stack of boxes. While cleaning up after the fight, Maria discovers a wooden door leading to an underground cellar of the run down spa resort. The strippers discover that the former owner had a collection of occult books, a hidden stash of yen bills (discovered by Darna unbeknownst to the other girls), and a strange well called the Well of Spirits which has already been sealed off. While rummaging through the ex-owner's former belongings, a medieval Book of the Dead is discovered by Maria who was interested in the ex-owner's book collection. Believing she can use the book to perform necromancy, Maria chants several spells from the book, only to discover that it didn't work. Disappointed, Maria and the other girls leave the basement. What they didn't know however, was that the spell actually worked and Maria had accidentally released the undead from the Well of Spirits.

While preparing dinner, Ginko and Nene discover that the spell worked and has caused all types of deceased life, including raw fish and sushi, to return from the dead and terrorize Ikagawa. Meanwhile, Darna sneaks into the cellar where she had discovered the money, but soon discovers that a zombie was hidden underneath the pile of cash and is torn to pieces by zombies.

Back in the dressing room, Ginko and Nene inform Lena and Maria about the zombie sushi incident, but are interrupted when they hear of a large audience outside. The audience, however, are revealed to be zombies who have recently killed Yudai. The zombies attack them and Nene is bitten by one of the zombies, but still manages to escape with Maria, Ginko and Lena. The zombies continue to emerge from the well and begin to slaughter the citizens of Ikagawa and eventually begin to spread all over Japan in a short manner of seconds according to a reporter who is devoured by several zombies. Although sharing the basic characteristics of infectious zombies, the zombies still retain their intelligence and intellect they had prior to being zombified.

While cornered in the dressing room, Maria betrays Lena, Nene, and Ginko and escapes. Despite the betrayal, the three of them escape in the Ikagawa Paradise Theatre van, eventually driving to the spa resort where they had previously performed after the van was ruined when running over an elderly human. Ginko then reveals that she recognized a one eyed zombie amongst the crowd. She reveals that the zombie was a mentally disturbed murderer who killed Ginko's younger sister, but couldn't be touched legally due to being insane. This led a vengeful Ginko to kill the man by impaling him on an umbrella.

Meanwhile, Maria returns to the abandoned spa's basement where she discovers the mutilated remains of Darna. The zombies attempt to kill Maria, who bribes them with flashing and candy. However, these attempts fail miserably. As a last resort, Maria chants a spell from the Book of the Dead and is successful at controlling them.

Cast

• Sola Aoi
• Risa Kasumi (かすみりさ)
• Mari Sakurai (桜井まり)
• Tamayo
• Io Aikawa (相川イオ)
• Ini Kusano (草野イニ)
• Kazuki Tsujimoto (辻本一樹)
• Mame Yamada (マメ山田)
• Yumi Yoshiyuki
• Hachirō Ika (いか八朗)
• Daisuke Iijima (飯島大介)
• Minoru Torihada
• Saori Ando

Differences between the film and manga

• In the manga, the book's main antagonist Maria Kuroi is fired from the strip club after Rena exposes Maria's habit of performing fellatio on less popular customers in order to get more tips. However, this is never mentioned in the film.
• There are several differences between Maria Kuroi's character in the film and manga. In the manga, Maria Kuroi is shown to be a voluptuous foul-mouthed brute with braided dreadlocks who frequently assaulted new strippers over trivial and/or non-existent reasons (such as folding the corner of a roll of toilet paper) while in the film, Maria Kuroi is shown to be an intelligent, slender young red haired woman who quotes different playwrights and philosophers (e.g. William Shakespeare). When cornered by the zombies, Maria Kuroi was able to manipulate the zombies with her scent in the manga while she used a chant from the spellbook in the film. Despite these differences, the film version of Mari Kuroi still possesses similar characteristics of her manga counterpart, such as the clawed gloves and the scars on her arms from wrist cutting.
• In the manga, Rock's character was shown as being muscular, short-haired and possessing various tattoos on her arms (which she obtained during her stay in prison for murder. The film version however portrays Rock as being a lot slimmer and having longer hair.
• The manner of how Rock murders the rapist is also different. In the manga, she killed him after destroying his home with a truck and anally raping him with a beer bottle while in the film, Rock killed the rapist by impaling him with an umbrella.
• In the film, the cause of the zombie outbreak is the result of a spellbook while there was no cause for the zombification in the manga.
• Also in the film, there are various types of zombies and even several mutant zombies (the most infamous one being a zombie with a mutant, flame spewing vagina). However, only shambling zombies exist in the manga version. However, the zombies still retain their intelligence in both versions, but have an uncontrollable urge to devour the living.

Release

The film opened on 15 May 2010, in Japan, and was released on DVD on 14 August. Big Tits Zombie 3D was released in some cinemas in the UK in October 2010 by Terracotta Distribution. The DVD followed in November.

Reception

Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Although the narrative is as minimalist as the wardrobes, screenwriter-director Takao Nakano has heaved in some brainy wit amid a cornucopia of gore and flesh." Scott Foy of Dread Central rated it 1/5 stars and wrote, "The whole sorry spectacle is really more like an endless stream of non sequiturs that rarely amount to anything beyond inane gibberish." Ard Vijn of Twitch Film wrote, "There are a few half-good jokes in there and the film never drags, but it also never rises above the barest (haha) expectations you'd get from the title." Ben Bussey of Brutal as Hell wrote, "[I]f you're after a quick blast of something silly, splattery and sexy, then Big Tits Zombie may well be to your liking." James Mudge of Beyond Hollywood wrote, "Takao Nakano certainly knows what the fans want, and serves up gore, imaginative splatter gags, surreal humour and bare breasts in equal measure, most of which are pretty entertaining, if often baffling and random." Gordon Sullivan of DVD Verdict recommended the film to people enticed by the title, but said that others probably would not enjoy it. Writing in The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, Volume 2, academic Peter Dendle called it "a clever parody of Japanese trash cinema".

See also

OneeChanbara, a similar-themed game series that began in 2004

External links

• Official website (Japanese)
• Big Tits Zombie at IMDb
• Big Tits Zombie at Rotten Tomatoes
• Review at SaruDama.com